


Never A Dull Moment

by Piandaoist (piandaoist)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Complete Bullshit, Crack, Crack Relationships, Friendship, Gen, Mild Language, crackfic, no beta we die like jet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23883073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piandaoist/pseuds/Piandaoist
Summary: When Azula showed up at his door, Piandao wasn’t sure how this situation would play out.  But he knew things were about to get interesting...  #atla15 prompt | Love
Relationships: Piandao & Azula
Comments: 7
Kudos: 20
Collections: #atla15 -- Avatar the Last Airbender 15th Anniversary Prompt Challenge, Piandaoist Back On Her Bullshit, Piandaoist's Comfort Fic, Piandaoist's Short Stories Collection, The Piandao Library





	Never A Dull Moment

**Author's Note:**

> [Prompt Challenge](https://atlafans.tumblr.com/post/190938611989/caelum-in-the-avatarverse-february-21-2020): [#atla15](https://www.tumblr.com/search/atla15) | Love [@atlafans](https://tmblr.co/mnuJxs3q96ZkLxemOzj5bqQ)

**0 Day:**

"Did you come here to kill me?"

"No," Azula said. "I need a place to crash."

Piandao nodded. "Just planning my day."

**Day 1:**

Azula looked on in horror at Piandao as he tried to establish some "ground rules".

"Who do you think you are? Giving orders to a royal princess?"

Piandao threw his hands on his hips in the most dramatically gay way possible, striking a pose. "You may be a princess, but I'm The Queen."

**Day 2:**

Azula looked at Fat with the kind of disdain that came from a lifetime of thinking she was better than other people. Then she pointed with authority toward the direction of the kitchen. "Food. Now!"

"You don't pay my salary."

Azula shrieked, " _You get paid?"_

**Day 3:**

"I wish to be instructed in the way of the sword. If my brother could master the blade, how hard can it be?"

Azula stood, silent, watching Piandao who also stared back at her in expressionless silence. Then he laughed, placing a firm hand on her shoulder.

"Azula, you don't need a sword. You're already a living legend when it comes to stabbing people in the back!"

For the first time in weeks, Azula felt her mood shift as a tiny smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth. It was nice to have at least one of her many talents recognized by another prodigious master.

He matched her smirk with one of his own.

**Day 17**

Piandao dropped a stack of scrolls onto Azula's desk. "I'll pay you to do all this work Zuko gave me. It was supposed to be done two weeks ago."

"Only if I get to co-sign off on it and be there when you turn it over to my brother. I wanna watch him shit himself."

"Deal!"

**Day 35:**

After a week of refusing her demands, Fat decided he would brush Azula's hair.

"Fat!" Piandao, scowling, arms folded, bellowed from the doorway.

"What?" Fat droned, feigning ignorance.

Azula turned her head, nearly toppling from her chair from shock as soon as she saw the large, imposing garden trimmers.

"Bad Butler!" Piandao scolded. "Step away from the hair!"

The trimmers clanked when Fat threw them on the floor at Piandao's feet. "This is why I don't have nice things!" he hissed as he stomped passed Piandao.

Piandao shrugged at Azula while lightning crackled. "He's harmless."

**Day 52:**

Piandao sighed when he heard Azula screaming at Fat followed by the sight of familiar blue light coming from the corridor.

"Use your inside firebending, please!"

**Day 81:**

Fat looked at Piandao with contempt and disgust while Piandao stared back at him with sad gray eyes. "Please, Fat? I promised Sokka!"

Fat rolled his eyes. "And I promised Sokka I wouldn't be mean to him. And then, when you left the room, I hit him in the arm as hard as I could, and then I laughed about it."

"I'll take care of him!" Piandao promised.

"You know, Master Piandao, I allowed you to break our "No Pets" agreement with Azula because she was potty trained. But..." Fat frowned at Sokka's stupid bird when Hawky pooped on his recently-cleaned red carpet. "Just no!"

Fat left while Piandao glared at Hawky. "The whole of this castle is not your personal bathroom, Hawky."

Hawky let out a shrill, defiant squawk, flapping his wings.

"Watch your mouth, Hawky!"

Fat returned with a bucket full of warm soapy water and a cloth. "Clean it up now before it dries," he snapped, plopping the bucket onto the floor at Piandao's feet. "And if Hawky poops on the carpet again, I'm going to throw the carpet over the side of the rock garden into the river below, and I'll throw him into the stew pot!"

Azula cackled when she caught sight of Piandao, on his hands and knees, cleaning up Hawky's poop like a common servant.

"Don't be shitty!" Piandao griped.

"Why not? Because then you'd have to clean it up?"

Piandao's frown grew in direct opposition to her wide smile.

...

"And get off my fainting couch!" Piandao huffed.

**Day 104:**

Piandao entered the room to find Fat and Azula locked into a glaring contest. Fire danced between Azula's fingers while Fat cracked a whip with one hand while brandishing a high-held boning knife in the other.

Piandao grumbled something incoherent. He just wanted to see if anyone was up for a game of pai sho. "Never mind…" he mumbled, padding off to talk with his one true friend, Hawky.

Day 126:

After weeks of practice, Azula's scheme finally paid off. Whenever Piandao entered his study, Hawky would laugh at him. Whenever Azula entered, Hawky would fly over to perch on her shoulder. Hawky was her bird now.

**Day 149:**

Toph was skeptical about Piandao's proclamation that Sokka's training was about to get interesting. Piandao was a lot of things; interesting wasn't one of them.

They watched from the balcony while Sokka waited for ~something~ to happen. And then it happened. Azula jumped down from the roof, landing on the other side of the courtyard with a big grin plastered across her face.

Sokka's panicked screams echoed throughout Shu Jing as he dodged fireballs while Azula flew around like a deranged bird-of-prey. Despite his obvious emotional distress, Sokka was holding his own, at no big surprise to Piandao. Sokka might have seemed like a hot mess, but he was a Plan Machine, and he was surprisingly quick.

Toph punched Piandao so hard, she nearly knocked him over.

"And I thought this was going to be a boring waste of my time!" She cheered, throwing her hands up when Sokka ran past them. "Woo! Run, Water Boy, run!"

This game of Cat-squirrel and Also Cat-squirrel went on until Piandao and Toph got bored. Aang, Katara, and Suki held each other until the whole horrible affair was over.

And from that day on, it was known that Piandao and Azula were Allies and that the whole world could just Suck It! It was, indeed, a horrible affair for anyone who dared cross them. They were inseparable, like a pair of Siamese twins joined at the same terrifying brain.

\---

In the interest of world peace and global harmony, Zuko called for diplomacy in all matters. However, when there were threats that could not be swayed by words and good deeds or even bribes, lurking somewhere beyond the periphery, there was Piandao and Azula and their mercenary army. Zuko could never know just how many of his orders were carried out at the urging of blue flames and a steel blade (plausible deniability and all).

\---

Ozai tried to grab power by convincing the sages his case for a return to the throne should be heard and decided by the nobility (the same nobility that helped him plot against his own family). No one knew where Azula's loyalties lay. But everyone was surprised when she proclaimed: "If a nonbender could be Firelord then it should be the most powerful nonbender in all the Fire Nation: Piandao!"

When Piandao entered the chamber sub rosa via the super-secret doorway that only the sages were supposed to know about, he snatched the crown from the head sage, placing it on his own head. Because let's be honest, if they didn't give him the crown, he would just beat Ozai up and take it from him.

As for Azula? Her loyalty lay with the person who showed her the respect she was owed. Zuko had reinstated her royal title and privileges and given her command of his military forces. He had fulfilled promises Ozai failed to keep. Ozai played her once, never again! If Ozai did manage to secure the unanimous votes necessary to take the throne from Zuko, Piandao would take it from him and give it to her.

This was all purely academic. As they suspected, no one wanted Piandao to have that much power, not even Piandao. There could only be one correct decision: Zuko would remain in power and Ozai could just go fuck off somewhere.

\---

Azula was Zuko's top general. Or was it Piandao? Sometimes Piandao would sit at her right, sometimes she sat at his. They liked to change it up from time to time to keep everyone on their toes.

Azula found it a real intellectual challenge to maintain a fragile peace when so many in every nation were so eager to get back to the business of war. Piandao was just glad he no longer had to send out condolence letters to fallen soldiers' families.

\---

Harsh words were spoken when Piandao initiated Azula into the Order of the White Lotus. Civilized people would never repeat such vile things in public. Piandao and Azula weren't civilized.

Bumi laughed like the certifiably chaotic madman he was. Iroh might have been the High and Mighty Grand Lotus, but Piandao was The Boss. Or was it Azula? Hmm…

\---

Azula legally adopted Piandao, making her the eighteen-year-old mother of a sixty-year-old man. No doubt the first such arrangement for the Fire Nation! He was an orphan, after all, and he needed a "proper" upbringing. They both had a grand laugh at the situation, turning a "What if?" into a "Why not?"

The judge who signed off on the adoption didn't bother to question the logic in it. They were Piandao and Azula! If they wanted to be turned into wizards, she would have signed the paperwork to make that happen despite the impossibility.

When Azula tried to return Piandao, she said she lost the receipt, but that he was "only slightly used". Piandao confirmed that he was, in fact, only slightly used, but she had given him a severe case of Mommy Issues. He demanded to be compensated by The State for his suffering.

Despite the folly of it all, Piandao was Azula's son, making him Zuko's nephew. "Meet Uncle Zuzu," she laughed as she introduced her son to the Firelord in front of his entire Court. It was absurd but Zuko got a kick out of Piandao calling him "Uncle". The Court was not amused.

When Azula introduced Piandao to Ursa, it went something like this: "Here's your darling grandson, Piandao. He's already a sword master at the tender age of sixty. We're all very proud of him."

Piandao looked at Ursa then back to Azula. "Is it weird that I want to bang my grandmother?"

\---

Piandao looked for the darkness inside everyone-the emotional weaknesses he could exploit (if it came to that). Azula saw their light and the numerous ways it could illuminate her own grace. Piandao wanted to break his enemies down so they couldn't get back up while Azula wanted to build hers up into something she could work with. They had the same enemies. In fairness to each other, coins were flipped to determine their fates.

Piandao was the annoying, sometimes emotionally available father/son Azula never wanted but always needed. Azula was the "Not my kid!" child/mother Piandao had to raise alone because Mommy Fat left them years ago to get some peace and quiet (but he and Hawky always visited). In the whole grand scheme of things, all they had was each other and the network of friends who had the guts to love them and their crazy ways.


End file.
